Difficult to tolerate much less love
Honestly, it is beyond awful. Maybe, somewhere, there is something in here but honestly I don’t know. I run my own business so would like to think I’m not completely thick but this software makes me feel like the village idiot.
If you are from YNAB please, please look at reviews online first before you jump as this is honestly one of the most frustrating things I have ever done.
Original review:
I’ve moved over from YNAB to PocketSmith and I have to say, so far, so bad.
I was lured by the promise of bank integration and, in fairness it does this very well.
That’s probably where the good ends though and the bad begins. Honestly, I’ve been setting it up since what feels like the last age. It takes forever.
Even after owning it for a couple of months I still am not really close to getting what I want out of it (a budget).
I’ve got ChatGPT and Claude working around the clock and their standard answer to most things is “yeah, that’s just a limitation of PocketSmith” or “you’ve hit a well known frustration”.
Maybe the mobile app is amazing. Who knows, you have to configure it all on web and I will probably be dead before I complete that.
If your are on YNAB and thinking “I wonder if it’s worth the pain of moving so I don’t have to manually import transactions?” the answer is “would you jam a rusty knife in your own eye?”. Probably not.
Response from developer
Thanks for giving PocketSmith a go, Jason - we appreciate you being candid about how the switch has felt. Getting started in PocketSmith can take a bit of groundwork, especially if you’re moving from a different budgeting style and trying to shape it around the way you already manage money. AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude can often send people in the wrong direction. They’re not trained on the ins and outs of PocketSmith, and they can present assumptions as fact, particularly around what is or isn’t possible in the product. We have an excellent dedicated support team, so we’d really recommend reaching out to them at help@pocketsmith.com so they can help you get things configured in a way that works for you. PocketSmith Sidekick was always intended to be a companion to the web-based/desktop app, as the complex functionality can’t be fully replicated in a mobile setting. However we’re fully committed to evolving and improving how we bring PocketSmith to mobile, which you can read about here: https://www.pocketsmith.com/blog/an-update-on-the-future-of-pocketsmith-on-mobile/ Thanks again for taking the time to share this feedback. It’s helpful, and we’re sorry this first stretch with PocketSmith has been such a slog. Please feel free to get in touch if you have anything else you’d like to share.
